Professional and amateur athletes alike strive to obtain a level of athletic ability. Unfortunately, however, their chosen exercise routines may not allow the athlete to excel to their full potential. Further, individuals without experienced coaches or trainers are even less likely to reach their full potential. Thus, merely following a standard exercise routine will not assist the individual to improve certain performance characteristics that may be important. For example, an individual who desires to play football for a professional sports team may have adequate speed to be considered a possible member of the team or league; however, his responsiveness to a sport or fitness-related response may be below acceptable ranges. Blindly following an improper exercise routine may not improve his responsiveness.
Further, coaches and recruiters need to quickly determine the performance characteristics of several individuals in a relatively short period of time. Although they may receive recordings or statistics of possible players, most likely do not provide an accurate evaluation into pertinent characteristics, such as speed, responsiveness, quickness, and power, among others. Further, statistics may be fabricated or inaccurate. Even when attempting to accurately measure performance characteristics, high levels of uncertainty may be present given the unknown condition of timers, equipment, and other variables. Further, each athlete's performance may have been measured with different timers, equipment, and/or environmental conditions.
Certain systems and methods may provide certified ratings of athletes; however, current systems and methods are expensive and time-intensive. For example, current systems and methods require training people to administer a plurality of testing protocols. Further, given the costs and time-intensive process of training, calibrating equipment, traveling to various locations, and conducting the analysis, the process is cost and time prohibitive for many athletes.
Further, amateur athletes may not pursue such testing or analysis. This is unfortunate, because improvements in athletic performance, even for non-competitive individuals, tend to encourage continued exercise. Unfortunately, without proper analysis and testing, an individual may not improve desired athletic qualities. Further, relying only on physical improvements obtained from exercise often results in failure as many physical improvements takes several weeks or months to appear, and thereby provide insufficient motivation to maintain a exercise program. For example, it may take an extended period of time for an individual to physically notice what qualities are improving and what qualities are not improving. Furthermore, without accurate systems and methods for measuring their performance, the individual may incorrectly evaluate one or more performance characteristics. Therefore, for these and other reasons, there is a need for improved systems and methods.